Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Bin Laden Still Popular in Israel's Neighborhood

Yesterday I linked to the story about the Hamas Prime Minster, no less, who condemned America's killing of Bin Laden. Meanwhile he has been joined by others. The Al-Aqsa martyrs Brigades - that's Fatah, if you keep track of such matters, not Hamas; Fatah as in Mahmoud Abbas - published a long statement condemning the killing and calling it a catastrophe. And no, the explanation that it's Fatah's military wing, not its political wing, is not helpful. These people are claiming the right to a sovereign state, for crying out loud; would we brush off a separate foreign policy of the Syrians, say? The Russians? Karl Vick, a journalist not known for Zionist inclinations, wandered around Ramallah yesterday and found some support for Bin Laden even after his death, though of course Vick allows the supporters to explain it's Israel's fault. An imam in El Aksa mosque told Obama he'd soon be hanged for his crime of killing Bin Laden. The Economist, a bit more cool-headed, reports that support for Bin Laden among Palestinians has declined over recent years from 70% in 2003 to a mere third not long before he was killed. How reassuring.

Over in Egypt, the Muslim Brothers have also lined up on the wrong side of the current discussion. Something to keep in mind the next time a clueless media type assures us the Brotherhood is eager to be an Egyptian version of a European Christian Democratic party or some such silliness.

Of course, the Europeans weren't all unanimously overjoyed by the killing either, though not because they liked Bin Laden; rather, it seems there's a significant constituency in Europe for the idea that extra-judicial killings are always wrong, no matter what the circumstances. This is not at all the same as Muslim support for Bin Laden, but it does help explain why too many Europeans can't get their heads around the facts of Islamism. There are other facts they can't comprehend, either, because they don't fit the paradigm of how the world ought to be, which makes explaining Israel's positions largely impossible to such people. Personally, I think the sentiment that there's an international system of law which overrides anything else and must dictate everyone's behavior, is quaint at best on the day after the world's most powerful nation has just demonstrated it doesn't accept the idea: if not the US, and certainly not many others, what might be the source of authority for such talk except wistful thinking?

But I digress.

Too many Palestinians and others in Israel's neighborhood are firmly on the wrong side in the war between the Islamists and humanity. They are the enemy. This has to be clear, and the myriad attempts to obfuscate it must be countered. At the same time, the fact that too many Palestinians support humanity's enemies is not a justification for building more settlements on the West Bank, nor must it inevitably dictate that Israel needs to assist the Palestinians in their war against us by sitting on them and granting them perpetual propaganda victories for their victimhood. It doesn't even mean that the Palestinians can't have a state, such as everybody else has.

Thinking adults in a democracy can be - must be - expected to be capable of holding contradictory thoughts simultaneously.

(Short addendum: the strange people who inhabit the Mondoweiss universe are deeply troubled by the killing of Bin Laden. The reason this is significant is that it demonstrates how far from any type of American normality these folks are; this probably means their extreme aversion to Israel is just as far removed, and just as unlikely ever to have a politically significant public).

not that it matters one bit but I am perfectly willing to be convinced that your take on settlements is the sensible one. But just stating like you did the other day that it has long been established isn't much of an argument against what Benjamin Schwartz explained to me.

If it has long been established there must be similarly convincing to the ignorants like me out there.

Just to give an idea of how disconnected those radical leftists are even from the Palestinians they purport to support:

Jibril Rajoub (Fath) was interviewed today on radio by Etti Peretz and he said this:"I turn to the Israelis and tell them this in simple language: don't listen to those crazies with their talk about one state for two people!"

I've often said that in the hands of the Jewish radical Left, the Palestinian cause has become a Golem of Prague (let's call it the Golem of Bil'in) with its own will regardless of what their Palestinian handlers want or don't want. I think that proves it once again. Even in the (unlikely) eventuality that Palestinians and Israelis come to an arrangement, the "crazies" as Jibril Rajoub calls them won't allow it to happen.

a eminent German MSM guy mourned the demise of a 56 year old family father.

and since, alas, I am getting told that Germany is about to become or is the most powerful state in the EU our moral pontificating may matter.

I've listened to two BBC Today items on it up to now - the attitude is light years away from ours - our MSM rejoice in expressions of cultural superiority because the Americans partied. Here is a currently very much in demand history professor named Herfried Münkler:

(roughly: for European observers these proclamations have indeed something embarrassing, because they show a form of unreflected Naivité, have something provocative.) i.e. never forget that we continue to be whatever we may have done the folks of the Dichter and Denker und everybody else is not quite up to us. I quote Münkler because he seems to have been very much in demand and because judging from all the radio-pieces headlines is pretty mainstream.

Stanford's Martha Crenshaw, one of the foremost scholars in terrorism studies, has noted that there are "almost no Palestinians in al Qaeda and no proven links with Hamas or the other Palestinian groups that use terrorism against Israel."

It's actions that count, not words. But since you're interested in words, let us remember that over 50 top Israeli rabbis have called on their followers not to rent houses to Arabs. Let us recall that a top Israeli politician and rabbi has stated that the goyim only exist to serve the Jews. Let us keep in mind that a rabbi from the occupied territories has ruled that Jewish women shouldn't get pregnant with Gentile sperm because their offspring would have barbaric traits.

And Israel throws its full financial support behind these rabbis.

The difference with the Palestinians is that when Israeli Jews make horrific statements they can realize them. The rabbis' rulings have led to Arab cars being torched in Safed; to a Holocaust survivor receiving threats for renting out to Arab students; to a Druze IDF veteran being driven from his apartment in Tel Aviv; and so on. The Al-Aqsa outrage at Bin Laden's death, on the other hand, has had no practical consequence whatsoever.

Assignment: analyze and interpret the meaning of the proverb sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

On another note, how does an Al-Aqsa communiqué compare with Congressman Dick Armey, in his former capacity as House Republican leader, declaring that Palestinians should be expelled from the West Bank? Which of the two is more powerful? Which statement carries more political weight? And if you saw a top politician from a certain country calling for your ethnic cleansing, what would your feelings toward that country be?

Fake Ibrahim or obnoxious al-Berto or Mr. Miraya, whatever you wanna be called

- I can understand that you feel lonely since none of your once so ardent admirers shows up on your blog for a bit of a chat but couldn't you unload your unmitigated nonsense somewhere else?

It really is a pity that flagging isn't possible on this blog, else you'd vanish into the abyss in no time as you regularly do on EoZ.

Note for anybody who doesn't know wannabe Ibrahim yet - you find ample information under Yaacov's profile. And please keep in mind that he only comes here hoping to find a debater who saves his blog from insignificance i.e. he indulges in a bit of blog-pimping.

for those who aren't Germanically challenged our host in a German podcast on the Fatah and Hamas embrace

http://freie-radios.net/40804

on the same day they had also Shimon Stein who used to be Israel's ambassador to Germany and who speaks with an accent which I like very much. He does much more of a ch-ch in the back of his throat than our dear host ;-)

Well Yaacov, you have no way of knowing which Palestinians support al-Qaeda. You can't identify a single individual by name who would express support for bin Laden in any poll. So when you call an unknown quantity "the enemy," you are calling for deliberate attacks on civilians, and you will sleep fine at night because they may or may not be "the enemy." This goes regardless of whether you occupy the Palestinians or they have a "state."

You're willing to kill civilians for what they represent to you, regardless of what they've done. If al-Qaeda's ideology is a threat to humanity, how about killing people and segregating them in small enclaves because too many of them can't be allowed in a certain geographical area even if they or their grandparents were born there? That is a description of Zionism or Jewish sovereignty over Palestine if you like.

Disclaimer: the fact that I'm answering to this should not be construed as an acknowledgment that my name is Alberto, or that I'm a raccoon on a motorbike.

You embarrass yourself with these idiotic rants. They aren't factual, they aren't intelligent, and, no, they aren't even funny.

It all depends on your viewpoint, Yaacov. In Gaza, for instance, my rantings are considered moderately to very funny by a staggering 84% of the population (92% among observant Muslims). In the West Bank, the figures decrease somewhat to 76% and 88%, respectively. Nothing that a few tons of white phosphorus can't fix, though.

You already have admitted, in writing, on this blog, that Ibrahim is Alberto. I know you're not very good at keeping track of facts, but that was pretty close to home, for crying out loud.

Andrew,

Unlike you, I've been publishing my positions in my full name for many years -long before the advent of this blog, by the way. There are books I've written that can be found in any reasonable library, or even online, and articles. The nonsense you just spouted is easily refutable by the entire body of what I've written. I suggest you acquaint yourself with this material before you make slanderous accusations. If you were honorable enough to speak in your own name, I'd ask my counsel if you're approaching the legal definition of slander - but of course, that's why you don't identify yourself.

I'm sorry to inform you that "andrew r" over at Ibrahim's despicable home has once claimed to have read your book and quoted from it to prove it (I hadn't read it at the time) and claimed that in it he had found proof of everything that needs to be condemned about Israel by somebody honest who of course iinsists that he isn't an anti-semite.

If I lash out immediately on any of Ibrahim's buddies who show up around here I do so for good reasons. I can't deny them access to the net but I try my very best to prevent them getting an audience wherever they show up and probably even more important by having some fun and picking up new ideas. They are sorely lacking in thinking for their own.

I have seen them getting debated by about the best-informed arguer and author imagineable - they are hopeless, all they did was sneer at him.

I am glad that this time around andrew r exposed himself so I am saved the trouble to do a docu on him.